Youth work story-telling: Facilitator’s prompt sheet  

Introductions: Ask everyone for:

• Name
• One-liner on their youth work experience

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Ask participants to read through programme including:

• IDYW ‘cornerstones’
• ‘Practising’ section from This is Youth Work Book in brief

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Write task on flip-chart  

Describe an example of your practice which represents you practising as a youth worker in your current setting.

Ask people to:

• take a few minutes to think of a story from practice re task. (Not everyone need offer one)
• bear in mind that if their story is chosen they will be asked to expand it and then be interrogated on it by the group.
• prepare a headline of the suggested story

Stories to be:

• Drawn from direct experience:
  • In which story-teller was active
  • Not from book, magazine, hearsay etc.
• Recognisable as a story relevant to today’s task.
• Not unduly complicated or lengthy
• Not necessarily a ‘success’ story: with complications,contradictions, dilemmas, etc.
• Not raising difficult or upsetting issues for story-teller.

Eg:

Jane – working with a group of young people in a youth club through music activies.

Mary: Supporting a group of young mothers

Ahmed: Working with group of young men around police harrassment……

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Collecting brief outlines of stories:

• Ask for volunteers to share just the headline of their story.
• Note the person’s name and the headline of their story on a flipchart

Keep momentum going – don’t let people talk for too long. Seek 4-6 stories. (May take too long for everyone to offer a story).

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Choosing one story to explore:

• Encourage open discussion on which story would best help group to address the task – and why.
• If one story emerges as most popular, seek agreement to choose that one.
• If no consensus after c.5 – 10 minutes – ask people to vote; take the majority vote.
• Tick on flipchart each time a story is mentioned favourably.
• Ensure the person whose story it is is OK to expand it, answer questions, etc.

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Telling the chosen story in more detail.

Capture main points on flip chart

Explain confidentiality rules:

– Only share information story-teller comfortable with

– Don’t use real names of agencies, colleagues, young people

– Don’t share sensitive information outside the session

Ask the story teller to do this – facts, process, people involved, motives, etc.

Encourage participants to ask questions of the story teller – to get fuller picture, clarify points, expand on how things happened – eg re:

– Who did/said what? With what effect(s)? On whom? Etc?

– What interventions etc helped the action along? By whom?

– What got in the way/diverted it etc?

– For the worker – were there dilemmas/uncertainties/pulls and pushes?

– Was the work ‘unfinished’? If so how?

– Were there outcomes? Of what kind? For whom? How do you/we know?

Capture main points on flip chart

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Invite the group to ‘unpick’/analyse/have a dialogue on:

– How is the story a response to task?

– What are its messages on the distinctiveness of youth work/its process etc?   

– How far does it ‘fit’ ;

– IDYW’s youth work ‘cornerstones’?

 -The ‘Practising’ features handout?

– Are there barriers to this kind of practice in the story’s setting?

– Are there wider barriers to this kind of practice?

– How can we promote/defend this kind of practice?

Note responses on flipchart.

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If time: ask story-teller to retell story in light of the ‘unpicking’.